Items tagged with Google

If you're a little timid of talking to an electronic device, you better suck it up soon, because it looks like it's going to be such a big part of our future as the "new normal". Solutions like Google's Conversation Actions are going to make these interactions possible. With Conversation Actions, smart algorithms are able to pick up on keywords to help give a reasoned response. An example of this can be seen below, where a user asks Google Home for dinner suggestions. The words "hot", "soup", "fast", "chicken", and "tomato" are plucked from the sentence, and without much of a delay, a tomato chicken...Read more...

Earlier this month, and right on schedule, Google released Chrome 55 which tackled high memory usage and put a tighter muzzle around Adobe Flash. Hot on the heels of Chrome 55 is the upcoming release of Chrome 56. One of the biggest changes coming with Chrome 56 is the way that it treats HTTP websites. Up to this point, Chrome hasn’t exactly been hostile to HTTP connections, simply displaying an icon (a circle with an “i” inside) that when clicked displays the message “Your connection to this site is not secure”. However, Chrome 56 will begin clearly marking any HTTP site that collects passwords...Read more...

There are two things Google has to come to grips with. The first is that smartwatches might not be the next big thing, as recent data shows that consumers are more interested in fitness bands than time pieces. And secondly, those who do buy smartwatches end up selecting an Apple Watch way more often than one running Android Wear. Those are the cold, hard facts for Google, a its latest "Magic Minute" campaign probably isn't going to change things. The Magic Minute Project is a marketing campaign designed to bring attention to Android Wear. It consists of one-minute clips showing what is possible...Read more...

Grand Theft Auto might get the lions share of the attention from Rockstar fans, but the developer has released a few other gems over the years as well, including some that sound downright bizarre at first, but turn out to be quite good. Such as Bully, which has just passed its tenth birthday. In Bully, you find yourself in the town of Bullworth playing the role of a high school student. It's an open world game (although limited compared to today's open-world epics) that lets you try to progress up the ranks of the school system, and tackle any and all roadblocks that arise. Rockstar has spruced...Read more...

If you have a Daydream-ready smartphone (i.e. Moto Z, Moto Z Force, Pixel, Pixel XL), Google is now shipping two new editions of the Daydream View VR headset. The Daydream View was initially only available in gray, but you can now choose from Crimson (red) and Snow (white). If you preordered either color, your headset will ship today. If you place an order for either headset today, your order should arrive no later than December 16th. Regardless of which color you select, the price of entry is still $79. Daydream View is the successor to the low-cost Google Cardboard VR accessory. It is constructed...Read more...

There’s no question that Google Chrome is by far the most dominant player in the desktop browser market. As we reported in early November, Chrome has more market share than both Internet Explorer and Edge combined. And over the past year, Chrome has seen its market share climb from 35 percent to 55 percent. During its meteoric rise, Microsoft has done its best to assail Chrome and promote its Edge browser as the faster and more efficient choice for Windows 10 users. But with Chrome 53, Google gave Windows 10 users a 15 percent speed boost by using Microsoft Profile Guided Optimization (PGO) technology....Read more...

In the words of Google, “Live has never looked so good”, as the company has just rolled out 4K live streaming on YouTube with standard and 360-degree viewing at up to 60 frames per second. According to Google, “Supporting this new format will let creators and partners stream incredibly high-resolution video, and let viewers enjoy the clearest picture possible when watching a live stream on 4K-supported devices.” 4K videos have a total of eight million pixels, giving the four times more image definition than their 1080p counterparts. Live streams therefore have crisper, more detailed images and...Read more...

Google Earth Timelapse is now offering a 33-year glimpse at the Earth’s human-led transformation transformation. Viewers can peruse thirty-three images of the Earth that span from 1984 to 2016 in numerous locations throughout the world. Some of these images include the rise of Dubai’s artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, and the urban expansion of Las Vegas, Nevada. Google used its Earth Engine to sift through three quadrillion pixels from more than 5,000,000 satellite images. It then took the best pixels to create the thirty-three available Timelapses. Google encoded...Read more...

If you currently are in possession of a Google account (and who isn’t these days), you might want to pay close attention to the findings of researchers at Check Point. According to Check Point, new malware is making the rounds under the name Gooligan. Gooligan’s main attack vector is through Android-based smartphones, attacking users that have downloaded infected apps. Once Gooligan finds its way onto an Android smartphone or tablet, it proceeds to root the device and then downloads additional payloads to compromise email accounts and steal authentication tokens. But that’s not all, the malware...Read more...

It's been proven that some tech companies have been willing to cater to the government's every need, but others -- namely Google -- remain adamant about transparency regarding shady practices. Earlier this year, we reported on Google's new feature that informs users if they've become the target of state-sponsored attackers, so as to help you better protect yourself via whatever means you have available. We can't imagine what it's like to receive a notification like this, but it can't be a great feeling. Now, we're reminded that this functionality exists, as a slew of journalists and professors...Read more...

Don’t panic but Google’s AI may have accidentally (or not so accidentally), sort of, kind of, created its own secret language. This internal self-taught language has apparently been developed by the company's Neural Machine Translation (NMT) and not a human. How was the secret language created and discovered in the first place? Google announced their new Neural Machine Translation this past September. The Neural Machine Translation translates entire sentences instead of small pieces. It examines the broader context of the sentence in order to produce the more relevant translation. The result...Read more...

Turkey massacre day is right around the corner. So is Black Friday, the annual shopping bonanza that turns otherwise well behaving citizens into rabid beasts with an insatiable thirst for savings and a total disregard for their fellow man, woman, or child. The frenzy will continue to some extent throughout the holiday shopping season, though Google is doing its part to make things a little less hectic by providing data of how crowded a particular place is at any given point in time. This is a real-time upgrade to Google's Popular Times feature introduced to Google Search and Maps last year. Popular...Read more...

The spread of misinformation and fake news via the internet is running rampant. As both a news writer and teaching assistant/college professor, I am in the unique position of not only battling misinformation online, but also in a university classroom. A Stanford University study recently discovered that many preteens and teenagers are unable to detect fake news, despite having tools at their disposal to to determine the validity of content. These future voters and leaders were unable to tell whether or not the articles they read were legitimate, accurate, or unbiased. Social media does not appear...Read more...

Heads up folks, the latest version of Google Play services will be the last one to support Android 2.3 Gingerbread and Android 3.0 Honeycomb devices. Google put the word out in a blog post on Monday, saying that Google Play services 10.0.0 and Firebase 10.0.0 client libraries for Android will be the last versions to support Android API level 9 (Android 2.3 Gingerbread). The next scheduled release is Google Play services version 10.2.0, which will increase the minimum supported API level from 9 to 14 (Android 4.0.1 Ice Cream Sandwich) when Google releases it to the public sometime in early 2017....Read more...